KOBO AND MEXICO’S TOP BOOK RETAILERS, LIBRERIA PORRUA AND GANDHI, JOIN FORCES TO DRIVE EREADING IN THE MARKET THIS FALL

New partnership gives booklovers access to more than 70,000 eBooks in Spanish on any device

TORONTO and MEXICO CITY, July 28, 2015 - In an unprecedented partnership in the Americas, two of Mexico’s most prestigious book retailers have joined forces with Kobo, a Rakuten company and leading innovator in the digital reading space, to offer booklovers a full range of eBooks, eReading services, and products throughout Mexico.

Kobo will power the eBookstore for both publisher and retailer Libreria Porrúa, with nearly 70 bookstores in Mexico and, Gandhi, the chain of nearly 30 stores. While the two retailers are competitors in other areas of business, they have jointly created a new service called Orbile, powered by Kobo, to offer a unified eReading service to Mexican readers. This new partnership further confirms Kobo’s commitment to bring about the best reading experience across Latin American markets.

“We have worked very closely with the teams at both Porrúa and Gandhi to create the best eBookstore possible, and formed an alliance that is a first for us and the industry in the Americas,” said Michael Tamblyn, President, Rakuten Kobo Inc. “The passion for books and reading is a common bond amongst us, and we look forward to offering this market not only a wide assortment of eBooks but an inspiring shopping and reading experience as well.”

Readers will be able to choose from the most popular bestsellers, literary works, comics, graphic novels, and children’s content, and will be able to browse a store merchandised with Mexico’s booklovers in mind. Readers will be able to peruse a wide variety of bestseller lists, curated recommendations across all genres, best-of-the-month, and seasonal suggestions, receive great personal recommendations based on their reading life and likes, and will be able to use Kobo’s powerful search engine to find even the most obscure titles available.

“With this partnership, Porrúa continues to honor its philosophy: ‘culture within everyone’s reach’, which is now enriched with the inclusion of new tools that allow people to have access to the universe of eBooks,” said Rodrigo Pérez-Porrúa, Sales Director of Porrúa. “As one of the oldest and most renowned book companies in the country, we are thrilled to keep finding ways to make available for everyone what we are most passionate about: books.”

The eBookstore will be open for business in September 2015, offering a full and rich catalogue with more than 70,000 titles in Spanish, within a total of 4 million titles, as well as Kobo’s family of award-winning devices that will be available in Porrúa and Gandhi’s bookstores. Meanwhile, the free eReading app will be co-branded, and will allow customers to access and read from their libraries anywhere, anytime, on any iOS or Android device.

“We started our company with the belief that reading enables people to improve their lives, and we wanted to spread the love of reading as widely as possible,” said José Achar, Director of Librerías Gandhi. “Our stores are created to put books at the center of culture, along with other aspects including movies and music. We are very pleased to be adding digital reading to this robust mix, and to spread the love of books.”

About Rakuten Kobo Inc.
Rakuten Kobo Inc. is one of the world’s fastest-growing eReading services offering more than 4.7 million eBooks and magazines to millions of customers in 190 countries. Believing that consumers should have the freedom to read any book on any device, Kobo provides consumers with a choice when reading. Kobo offers an eReader for everyone with a wide variety of E Ink eReaders and Google-Certified Android tablets to suit any Reader’s style including the award-winning Kobo Touch™, Kobo Mini, Kobo Glo, Kobo Aura, Kobo Aura H2O, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Arc, Kobo Arc 7, Kobo Arc 7HD, Kobo Arc 10HD – and the newly launched Kobo Glo HD. Along with the company’s free top-ranking eReading apps for Apple®, BlackBerry®, Android®, and Windows®, Kobo ensures the next great read is just a page-turn away. Headquartered in Toronto and owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten, Kobo eReaders can be found in major retail chains around the world. For more information, visit www.kobo.com.